N.C. poised for wine greatness

Apr 20, 2008 (The News & Observer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- -- Start drinking North Carolina wines in the coming months and someday you'll be able to say you remember when.

You remember when a tasting tour meant being able to chat with winemakers face-to-face.

You remember when the grapes that survived 2007's wild weather yielded some of the best wines you've ever sipped.

You remember when North Carolina's wine country was just taking off.

What's pushing the state's wine culture to the next level? A little bit of national buzz and a run of rough weather that winemakers are making the best of.

Late last month, "Today" show food editor Phil Lempert proclaimed Napa Valley winemaking out -- doomed by global warming -- and said North Carolina was poised to claim Napa's crown. And while wine boosters in our state aren't ready to agree that Napa is kaput, they are happy to get Lempert's nod.

"He could have picked any up-and-coming wine region to mention," says Margo Knight Metzger, executive director of the N.C. Wine and Grape Council. That he focused on North Carolina says a lot for the state's winemakers and their national profile. The state ranks 10th in the nation for wine and grape production. It is home to 70 wineries, three times as many as it had in 2001.

Lempert is not the only one high on the state's wine scene. Jim Hofman, author of the online site Wine Trails USA, recently published a glowing review of the state's coastal wine region (www.winetrailsusa.com/Archived_Article_-_NC.html). He and his wife are hoping to return to North Carolina this summer for a tour of Piedmont wineries, including those on the Haw River Wine Trail. They have explored wine regions in most of the 50 states, and Hofman says North Carolina's wines deserve more attention than they get.

"The wines that come out of North Carolina are among the best in the United States," he says.

This summer will be a great time for the state's wineries to show off. The 2007 vintage is being touted as stupendous. A late spring freeze and a punishing summer drought meant that vine yields were low last year, but the grapes that survived were of especially high quality. Fewer grapes mean fewer bottles, though. Some of these great 2007 wines will be sold only at the wineries where they are being bottled.

That means you need to get out there and start drinking.

"Now is really a wonderful time to get to know some of these vineyards and winemakers in person," says Knight Metzger. "You're likely to meet the winemaker and get a chance to talk to the people who make that business run."

Hofman agrees.

"Carve out a weekend and go with an open mind," he says.

An open mind was certainly what legendary wine writer Frank Schoonmaker had when he toured California's burgeoning wine regions and wrote for Gourmet magazine of the area's potential: "... they could make of Napa and Sonoma a second Cote d'Or and second Rhone Valley, loved and praised and remembered by thousands of tourists every year."

That was almost 60 years ago, and Napa has fulfilled its promise. Whether its day has come and gone, as the "Today" show's Lempert says, remains to be seen. Also known as the Supermarket Guru, Lempert predicted in the same segment that garbanzo beans would supplant edamame in popularity, that bison will become the new beef and that olive oil will soon give way to grapeseed oil.

Some of the state's winemakers shrink from comparison to Napa, insisting that their mission is to make their own mark on winemaking.

TV pundits aside, this summer will be a great time for the wine curious to find out just how great North Carolina wine can be. Whether or not you get to one day say you remember when, you won't have to battle West Coast traffic or eat edamame while you do it.

amber.nimocks@newsobserver.com (919) 829-4768

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